A story in which the characters we know are seen in a reality that's somehow different, often disturbingly so. If they can access multiple alternative universes at the same time, that's The Multiverse.

Sometimes everyone has an Evil Twin. Other times, everyone has a twin that's just a little different. Allows the goodies to be baddies for an episode, or for half of the cast to be killed - but not really. Sometimes it's just part of Side-Story Bonus Art.

Another type of Alternate Universe is that which doesn't take any of the characters, but instead takes concepts, or machines. Such Alternate Universes are uncommon, but exist. Gundam is the perfect example, with no less than seven separate universes, all of them rehashing essentially the same plots and concepts — in particular, the conflict between those living in space and those living on Earth. With giant robots.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

In the Kyoto Animation adaptation of Key'sVisual NovelCLANNAD, Tomoyo's arc, which was never completed properly, was showcased in an AU OVA entitled Another World: Tomoyo Arc, where Tomoya never met Nagisa and Tomoyo is the winning girl.

In July 2009, Kyo Ani released the final DVD of Clannad: ~After Story~ that contains an extra OVA episode entitled Another World: Kyou Arc. Kyou finally gets her arc!

Code Geass, like K, has an Idol AU, featuring the characters as idol groups, instead of militaries. The groups are Code Black, a goth/punk band consisting of Lelouch, C.C., Kallen, and Shirley (with animal ears); Royal Rouge Rounds (or RRR), an idol group featuring either Euphemia, Suzaku, Cornelia, Gino, Anya, and Jeremiah, or Cornelia, Euphemia, Suzaku, and Lelouch; and Princess Peach, featuring Kaguya, Nunnally, and Lihua. Several figure sets have been made from this AU, and an album is (supposedly) on the way.

The first is the demon world, which mirrors the regular setting except for the fact it is populated by demons. It first showed up in a filler episode dealing with a martial arts master from the demon world breaching the seal between the two worlds in order to kidnap human girls but later was added into continuity proper when the evil wizard Babadi enslaved the demon world's strongest fighter. The main villains from Dragon Ball Online hail from the demon world and Dragon Ball Xenoverse implies they too want to break the seal between the two worlds.

The second variety comes in the form of multiple timelines, a concept introduced when Future Trunks arrived via time machine to try and discover how to defeat two enemies from a very dark Bad Future. Unfortunately he was followed from an even darker future from which Cell hails. He killed his timeline's version of Trunks, who had already killed the Androids Cell needs to absorb, leading him to steal the time machine so he could absorb them in the past.Dragon Ball Online implies these alternate timelines are potentially endless and the main job of the protagonists was to prevent more of them from splitting off before encountering villains that aimed to change the known timelines rather than create new ones.

The third variety comes in the form of twelve separate 'universes' which come in pairs that are determined by their designated numbers adding up to thirteen. The main setting is designated universe seven and so it paired with universe six, which superficially resembles it but has seen some drastically different developments over the course of its own history.

In the Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 anime the opposite side of The Gate is shown to be our universe. The two worlds have vastly different continuities but all humans have an Alternate Self on the other side of the gate.

As it was written by the same mangaka as Rave Master, Fairy Tail had to have one of these as well, in the form of Edolas. It makes for an interesting plot twist, and despite its relative lack of plot significance, it doesn't feel tacked on at all. Although it does explain a good few things, like Happy and Carla's origin, and why Jellal and Mystogan look identical to one another.

The Hetalia Bloodbath 2010 event: the culprits turn out to be alternate versions of various countries from another world where everyone has cat ears and they walk around nude like it's no problem, and apparently contains 123 different Frances. The survival of that world depends on finding a nation with a certain mark on their chest or butt before the end of Christmas, hence the stripping.It Makes Sense in Context.

The climax of Stone Ocean involves Made in Heaven (the ultra-powerful stand of the Arc Villain) causing the universe to reset; however, his plans are ultimately foiled before he can finish the job, resulting in a reboot that features alternate versions of all the characters he killed. The only one not affected is Emporio (the kid who killed the Arc Villain).

From Steel Ball Run on, each Part takes place in an alternate universe with parallels to the previous timeline. It's never outright stated whether or not this is the same universe created at the end of Stone Ocean, though many fans believe it is.

The Big Bad of Part 7 has a Stand based around weaponizing a similar concept. He could escape death by pulling an identical version of himself from another universe to replace him, and could also force others to come into contact with their dopplegangers, and thus be obliterated. The other universes are almost identical, with the sole prominent difference being the lack of the Holy Corpse in all but the main universe.

K has both a High School A.U. and an Idol AU, which feature the series' feuding factions as rival school clubs or idol producers.

The Kirbyanime is meant to be an alternate universe from the games, something many fans miss.

Mazinger Z has a bunch of alternate universes: New Mazinger -set several years in the future, in a pollited, torn-warn Earth-, God Mazinger -that has absolutely nothing to do with the original universe-, Mazin Saga, Z-Mazinger -an alternate retelling where Kouji and Sayaka fight aliens masquerading like Greek deities-, Mazinkaiser -another alternate retelling where Kouji finds his grandfather's true legacy-, Shin Mazinger -still ANOTHER retelling- Shin Mazinger Zero -a sequel to the original series set in an alternate timeline-...

A major plot twist in Rave Master involved this trope: the entire series exists within an Alternate Universe, which was created when the last survivor of the original reality manipulated time in order to create a parallel world where The End of the World as We Know It didn't come to pass. The Omnicidal Maniac that was destroying this parallel world was in fact a balancing force created as a result of the unnatural divergence in the timestream.

Officially stated by a character in Saint Seiya Episode GA : Shura and Aiolia are not in their usual timeline nor universe.

In the fourth Haruhi Suzumiya novel, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, Kyon suddenly finds himself in a world without supernatural powers, with what SOS members remain leading normal, human lives.

It is, however, quite important to the plot that it actually was not an alternate universe, the one he has always been at had been rebuilt.

Their Pokémon get affected too; Alternate!Hawlucha has become a wimp like Alternate!Ash, and Alternate!Pikachu has become cocky and is a regular nuisance to Team Rocket.

Zigzagged in Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V which has The Multiverse and inter dimensional travel as a major plot point, but each dimension is an Alternate Universe version of a previous setting in the yugioh franchise (though there's no direct communication between these dimensions and the settings they serve as counterparts to). After The Reveal it turns out this trope is either invoked or averted, depending on your point of view.

The 5th Dimension and Qward remained, and in fact, Qward took the place of Earth-3 in establishing a place of origin for the Crime Syndicate.

An early post-Crisis Superman story established that Superboy had existed in an "alternate time loop" created by the Time Trapper simply to explain an inconsistency in the tradition of the original Earth-2.

D.C. began labeling their high-concept imaginary stories "Elseworlds" as if to imply that they took place on alternate Earths.

The 1996 Marvel vs D.C. crossover clearly states that Marvel and D.C. Comics take place on parallel Earths. This is important to the overall plot of the story, though it doesn't seem to have had much impact on the ongoing lives of either line of superheroes.

The 2003 JLA/Avengers also says that Marvel and D.C. are parallel Earths.

The fate of the Superman of Earth-2 was still apparent in the story The Kingdom.

D.C. eventually created Hypertime as essentially a similar device to exploring alternate versions of characters.

And, finally, the plot of Infinite Crisis made it so that the parallel Earths had to exist.

While a longstanding tradition at DC, the Second Wave of The New 52 had the re-established Earth-2 as a focus. (Not only the Earth 2 comic itself, but also Worlds' Finest, whose stars are refugees from that reality.)

Forever Evil involves the Crime Syndicate of the re-established Earth-3 invading the main Earth.

Earth-33, a.k.a. Earth-Prime, which is basically our world, with the reader being its latest superhero. It's also the world of origin for the Gentry, who are designated as "Hostile Independent Thought-Forms" by the reader and his/her haunted comic book, Ultra Comics. The Gentry's creator, the Empty Hand also reigns here, as he is implied to be the personification of our real world apathy towards superheroes and comics in general who is still digesting the previous iteration of the Multiverse lost during Flashpoint.

The other worlds of the multiverse include:

Earth-0, the main DCU.

Earth-1, the world home to the Earth One line of graphic novels, with young and inexperienced versions of the main DC heroes just beginning to appear.

Earth-2, as featured in the comic of the same name, where younger versions of DC's Golden Age heroes arose in the modern day in the wake of an invasion from Apokolips.

Earth-7 is already destroyed upon the arrival of Nix Uotan, but appears to have been a Marvel pastiche like Earth-8, below. However, pastiches of DC characters can be seen among the dead, so it's likely this Earth was a mix-up in homage to the many DC and Marvel crossover stories. The guidebook confirms that it is (or was) the equivalent to Ultimate Marvel.

Earth-13, home to a dark, magical Justice League called the League of Shadows, including Superdemon, Hellblazer (based on the Batmanesque version from Doom Patrol #53 and Books of Magic Annual #3), and Fate (the 90s version with the ankh scar). The world is in a state of perpetual twilight, there are 13 months in the year, and 13 hours in every day.

Earth-15, a perfect world that was destroyed by Superboy-Prime. All that's left is a Cosmic Grail that was hidden in another world.

Earth-17, an Earth ravaged by atomic destruction. Humanity lives in domed cities, and the Atomic Knights of Justice are led by Adam Strange.

Earth-18, a Western-style world featuring the Justice Riders, who ride on Steam Punk horses. On this world, the Time Trapper froze the state of progression so that, even with many 21st Century based technological advances, society is still a frontier world.

Earth-19, a world currently in the era of Edwardian England, home to the Bat Man, the Wonder Woman, the Accelerated Man, and the Shrinking Man. Bruce and Diana are based on Gotham By Gaslight and Amazonia respectively note Although those books have completely different Jack the Rippers, so can't actually be the same universe. The finale to DC's Convergence reveals that denizens from both worlds were present when the Multiverse was reformatted, causing the new Earth to combine elements of both.

Earth-23, home of President Superman, where the world's greatest heroes are black (which can mean that they're black in the main DCU, as with Steel and Vixen; that a black holder of the legacy in the main DCU is Earth-23's primary holder, as seems to be the case with Green Lantern; that they're black versions of the hero, as with Superman; or that they're completely unique). The major exception is Batman.

Earth-42, home to imp-like versions of the Justice League known as the Li'l Leaguers.

Earth-43, which has a Vampire League and is home to the Batman Vampire Elseworlds trilogy.

Earth-44, the world of the Metal League, a fusion of the Justice League and the Metal Men, led by Doc Tornado.

Earth-45, an Earth where Superman as a concept became perverted and corrupted by mass marketing and turned into the hyper-edgy Superdoomsday, whom later went on a homicidal rampage killing the Supermen of other Earths before being stopped by the Superman of Earth-0 in Grant Morrison's Action Comics.

Earth-47, a world where The '60s never ended, home to the Love Syndicate of Dreamworld and immortal teenage president Prez Rickard.

Earth-48, the new home to Lady Quark and Lord Volt. A world bred as protectors of the Multiverse, where everything is a superhero.

In Convergence, Brainiac has been collecting fragments from timelines and universes that have "ended" together on one world - ie, every DC timeline and AU prior to the New 52 - and Telos decides to let them meet. Featured are:

The post-Zero Hour future of the Legion note But not really. The team featured wore costumes similar to the post-Zero Hour Legion -and- Batch sw6 from the "Glorithverse", but featured a line-up that didn't match either version of the team and were depicted in a manner out-of-character for either version.

We also get glimpses of the original In Darkest Knight world and the original Leatherwing world that inspired Earth-31.

The end of Convergence results in the DC Multiverse becoming a combination of the Pre-Crisis Multiverse, the New 52 Multiverse, and the Elseworlds.

Comic Books — Other

The Adventures of Luther Arkwright is based on the premise of an infinite multiverse of parallel universes or realities which differ with each other in many things. For example, one of the main places where the action in the comic book takes place is a 20th century world where Great Britain is still ruled by a puritan government and a descendant of Oliver Cromwell. In addition, New York is New Amsterdam and the other great powers are the empires of Russia and Germany.

Even Archie Comics do this sort of thing, a notable example being the Life With Archie series. The storyline where Archie marries Betty is treated as a different universe from where Archie marries Veronica. The former also happens to feature a character traveling between universes!

Marvel Comics has explicitly adopted a Multiverse as part of their canon, with "out of continuity" storylines assumed (or explicitly stated) to have happened on an alternate Earth (or alternate-wherever). The "main continuity" of most Marvel titles is labelled as taking place on "Earth-616".

Galactus is the sole known survivor from the previous Big Bang-Big Crunch universe cycle, making him technically a native of an alternate universe.

And then there's the Age of Apocalypse storyline. Although it was initially an alternate present for Marvel's baseline universe "Earth-616", it became an alternate reality when Jean Grey split it off into a separate universe during the events of X-Men Omega.

The comic Exiles explores this idea to its fullest, having the main characters hop between different Marvel AUs and fixing problems.

According to Earth X, every time you alter history through time travel you create an alternate universe.

There are four known ones in Paperinik New Adventures. In order of appearance, they are: a universe where the Evronians are the Benevolent Precursors who taught science to the inhabitants of the Americas and the Vikings are the dominant power of Europe that are trying to invade (the recurring character Urk comes from there, and was accidentally pulled in Paperinik's own by the Raider); a The Lord of the Rings-like world conquered by an alternate and dimension-hopping Raider, who rules benevolently after finally ending the incessant wars; the timeline from which the alternate Raider comes from (specifically an Alternate Universe of PK's canon future); the Ultimate Universe Continuity Reboot gets established as one by the original PK showing up in the last issue. The story The Day of the Cold Sun specifically establishes there's an infinite number of universes, but travel between them is almost impossible due the sheer numbers of them (in that story the Raider has a device to travel between them, but after finally succeeding at charging it he gets stuck in all of them at the same time because the device couldn't choose one).

There was another story arc dealing with the discovery of a Mirror Universe called "Macro Zone Alpha" in which the city was an exceptionally polite place, and the brutal Judges were replaced by soft-spoken rehabilitation officers.

Judge Death and his Dark Judges originate from their own universe nicknamed "Deadworld" where living itself is considered a crime. There was also an atomic war at some point that led to the rise of a Judge system where the lawkeepers had ultimate power, but technology was noticeably less advanced than in Dredd's universe, as there were no Mega-Cities.

Let's not forget how it's done in Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog, where universes are known as "Zones". Beginning with the Mirror Universe with Scourge the Hedgehog, and continuing with Blaze the Cat and her "Sol Zone". And did I mention, in one "zone", Sonic is a cop who patrols between zones?

And Yoda kamikaziing the Death Star into the Imperial Palace on Coruscant.

Tom Strong features Terra Obscura, which is an alternate Earth... but it's not in another dimension or universe. It's located at the opposite end of the galaxy from "our" earth, and is its exact double — it's even part of a replica solar system. Tom theorizes that this is a ghost particle phenomenon on a cosmic scale. What differences there are are fairly minor, with the existence of more plentiful and more powerful science-heroes on Terra Obscura chief among them. Other than that, history went along many of the exact same beats, and thus it's not all that different from what we're familiar with (including its own version of Tom himself, Tom Strange) — though apparently the War of the Roses swung the other way, as New York is instead called "New Lancaster".

It's mentioned off-hand that the first time Tom Strong and Tom Strange met, it was as enemies, which means the Evil Twin angle saw some exploration as well.

Zot!: It is left ambiguous which Earth is the real Earth, but it is hinted that Zot's world is merely our Earth with all the bad parts taken out. It becomes more evident when it is revealed that the year is always 1965.

Issue #50 of The Powerpuff Girls, "Deja View" (DC run), had the girls being sucked into a vortex through their bedroom vanity mirror and transported into an alternate Townsville. It is rent asunder, which they think is the work of Mojo Jojo. But they encounter Jomo Momo, an alternate Mojo who is this alternate world's champion trying to stop the Powerpunk Girls, the alternate world's villains. The Powerpunks wind up in the true world's Townsville and have their way with it. When the girls gain Jomo's trust, they conspire to stop the Powerpunk's creator, Oppressor Plutonium, and return to Townsville to stop the Powerpunks and send them back. This was meant to be a season five TV episode but it exceeded budget, so the storyline was given to DC Comics to make as a special issue.

Co Op Mode: Of a kind wherein James exists since birth in the Wormverse. A closer example could be that Gaia exists, and thus is at work with helping parahumans (like Contessa/Fortuna) in defeating Scion.

Batman Beyond Revisited has Bruce Wayne die in his final battle with The Joker, and Terry McGinnis is replaced with an OC, runaway Jake Vance, who is recruited by the inheritors of Wayne Manor, Dick Grayson and the Oracle Barbara Gordon.

Deaths Child: Lily Potter is Death's one day of mortality ... Which changes everything.

Child of the Storm has the basic premise of Thor having been incarnated as James Potter first time round on the humility thing. This went about as well you'd expect, with the trauma of being violently murdered, then watching helplessly as his wife was murdered driving him nuts, necessitating a mind wipe and a return to square one. Also, Lily turns out to have been first cousin once removed of Jean Grey and accidentally called upon the Phoenix to protect Harry - which explains the incendiary component of the protection - and is not exactly dead, as such, which, needless to say, changes everything. It grows into a massive Inter Continuity Crossover, sticking the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Harry Potter, The Dresden Files, Smallville in a blender and is spliced with elements of Marvel Comics and DC Comics to create something entirely different. There's even a sly reference to Good Omens.

Eggman Generations: The ending of Sonic Generations leads the past and future Eggman into a white void, where they encounter the Eggman from Sonic 2006, as well as Dr. Eggman Nega and a fusion of Robotnik from Sonic SATAM and Adventures of STH, the latter two coming from alternate universes.

Evangelion 303: In this alternate world Second Impact did not happen, Seele is a terrorist organization and does not plan an Assimilation Plot, there are no giant robots or alien monsters, the Children are in their twenties and pilot war planes, Kaworu is a human being, apparently Rei is unrelated to Shinji…

HERZ: In this story Third Impact never happened. The divergence was created when Rei felt Shinji's despair at being unable to save Asuka. Rather merging with Lilith's body she absorbed it and flew to help him. She shattered the bakelyte encasing Shinji's giant robot and both hurried to help Asuka. Twelve years later Misato leads an organization tasked with preventing the proliferation of Evangelion technology, Shinji and Asuka are married and raising their child and SEELE is still plotting The End of the World as We Know It.

iSwear, an iCarly fanfic, starts with Carly entering an alternate universe, and every time she loses consciousness she is automatically evicted from one universe and pushed onto another in a manner similar to Quantum Leap and Sliders. The horror kicks in when you find out that other versions of Carly have been doing the same thing and that many have died due to ending up in dangerous Crapsack Worlds.

Just One, Big, Happy Kingdom is a Merlin fanfic in which an eighty-year-old Merlin decides to teach his younger self a lesson by putting him in a mirror universe ("Not-Camelot") and put Not-Merlin in the normal Camelot. It's one of those mirror everybody-is-his-opposite universes.

Mass Effect Clash Of Civilizations: Aside from the obvious (the UNSC in place of the Systems Alliance, the Covenant species existing, the whole Halo side of the crossover), in this universe the Council lifted the ban on opening closed relays several years before the start of the story. In canon Mass Effect, this never happened, and even during the trilogy the law against opening relays was still upheld.

Also, Starfleet Humans takes place in the same alternate universe that Equestria Girls took place in. However, Mykan is on record as saying that it is an alternate continuity that takes place near the end of MLP's 3rd Season.

The Odyssey, an Exalted fanfic. It's notable for both its quality and the fact that the point of divergence has not yet become apparent. Something happened to the Fivescore Fellowship, though..

Two of these exist in Phoenix's SSBB Case Files, named Alternate Turnabout and Alternate Turnabout 2. The first has Larry Butz working as a defense attorney, with Adrian Andrews at his side, while 2 features Franziska von Karma and assistant Dick Gumshoe working for the Wright and Co. Law Office.

The Pony POV Series has such a thing. It's explained that all the worlds diverged from the Heart World (implied to be the actual shows' timeline) and are effected by changes there, but can break off and continue on their own in the event the change in the Heart World is so great said universe can no longer harbor the connection. The ones the series itself focuses on are it's main timeline and the Discorded Timeline, a Villain World ruled by Discord, but we also see a lot of alternate timelines which Princess Luna refers to as "possibilities and impossibilities". Applejack gets to see quite a few of them on two seperate occasions, the one that means the most to her being the Orangejack universe, where she never left Manehatten. She eventually gets to meet Orangejack and they team up to fight Nightmare Mirror, Applejack's own Superpowered Evil Side who may or may not be another alternate version of her. It also turns out Orangejack is an Element Of Generosity and there are universes were Applejack was one of the other Elements as well, all of which are summoned to fight Nightmare Mirror. There's also a universe were Rainbow Dash turned into Nightmare Manacle, another where Pinkie Pie turned into Nightmare Granfalloon, and another were the mane cast are the Mighty Morphing Power Ponies fighting a Goldar version of Gilda. Oh and Pinkie Pie is actually the G3.5 Pinkie Pie and is how she is thanks to being left pretty much untouched by a Cosmic Retcon that turned that universe into the G4 universe.

The Predespair Kids was originally meant to be a prequel to the events of Danganronpa, but it branched off into its own universe with Mukuro Ikusaba pulling a Heel–Face Turn before the Tragedy ever takes place. Although even before then, there were some pretty big divergences from canon here and there, such as Chiaki being a Ridiculously Human Robot jointly built by Chihiro and Kazuichi.

Reality Is Fluid starts out with the USS Bajor being tasked with testing a new sensor array designed to detect and observe alternate universes. Two of the universes detected are an AU where the Federation apparently lost the Dominion War, and the Star Trek Novel Verse (the fic is based in the Star Trek Online timeline).

Riding The Dragon diverts the BattleTech universe by having political intrigue change the course of House Kurita in the early 31st century.

Scarred Survivors is a retelling of the Ah! My Goddess manga. A wish has enslaved Belldandy to a depraved pedophile. Urd enlists the help of a soldier in order to save her, a Navy SEAL by the name of Keiichi Morisato.

The Son of the Emperor mixes the real world with the world of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. This results in an Alternate Universe where the ponies grow to the size of horses and have been used for centuries in warfare, mytical creatures like griffons are commonplace and magic exists.

Streets Of Rage Saga, a 10-story saga based on the Streets of Rage game series (both the canon trilogy and several fan-made games and remakes based on said trilogy), takes place in a setting based on but highly different from the canon. Just a few brief examples, with the canon information in parentheses: Axel lost his father in a fire that was set by the man who would later become The Dragon for the first story's Big Bad (in canon, no mention is made of Axel's family members); Blaze comes from a Doomed Hometown that was razed by The Syndicate (in canon, the only back-story on her is that she was a rookie cop who quit alongside Axel and Adam because of the force's corruption); and Mr. X is a U.S. senator with the full name of George Xetheus (in canon, his real name wasn't divulged and his role as a Corrupt Corporate Executive was only hinted at in canon and expounded on in Bombergames' remake).

The Uplifted series does this, by showing what happens when Humanity is uplifted circa 1942 by the desperate Quarians with the intention of using them to retake Rannoch.

With Strings Attached is set on another planet in an alternate universe. Additionally, the four visit three other universes (including one set in a 1950s New York, more or less); the Fans are watching from their universe; the Dalns gods inhabit yet another universe; and Jeft comes from still another.

This trope is likely to be used by anyIntercontinuity Crossover fanfic in which the melded continuities would otherwise contradict one another.

An ER fanfiction series titled "Dreams That You Dare To Dream" had several of the main characters leaping to alternate universes in which several of the show's major changes never took place—Carol did die from her suicide attempt from the first episode, Susan Lewis never left town and married Mark Greene, etc. Another one set on New Year's Eve 1999, titled "Countdown", took a similar form, though it only focused on the typically unpopular Kerry Weaver.

Sonic X: Dark Chaos is this to Sonic X, thanks to several points of divergence in the back story of Sonic X Season 3. The biggest changes are that the Metarex aren't pure evil, the Seedrians were destroyed by their own creations, and the Demons and Angels get involved in the Metarex War. These changes have very bad consequences for the galaxy.

It's never been clear whether the Supernatural episode "The End" took place in the actual future, an alternate timeline, or a construct designed to be as distressing to Dean as possible. Down to Agincourt takes the view that the timeline really exists, and now that Dean's time has "caught up" (mostly, we think), it's more of an alternate universe than a Bad Future.

Total Shuffled Island Series is this to Total Drama. Every contestant that has competed in the first season all the way up to the sixth has had their introductory season changed around, leading to a different run of events such as different teams winning a challenge or different couples forming.

The Undertale fandom is a breeding ground for alternate universes. Some of these include:

Underswap, where the main character pairs switch places in terms of personality. Toriel is the Queen hunting down humans while King Asgore treats the player like a surrogate child; Papyrus is a lazy slacker while Sans is an excitable sentry; Alphys is head of the Royal Guard while Undyne is a bookish scientist; Mettaton is a melancholic snail-farmer while Napstablook is the Underground's celebrity, and Flowey is usually swapped with Temmie.

Mafiatale, where the monsters are a gang operating out of 1930s America.

Outertale, where the monsters were exiled to a far-off planet and the player is an astronaut.

The Thought, which explores what might have happened if Sans killed the player as soon as they left the Ruins.

Then there's the Error Universe, created from a copy of the game that was mangled beyond recognition and which spawned Error Sans (who wants to end the Multiverse entirely). And last but not least, there's HELP_Tale, a universe populated entirely by horrorsformed from the amalgamated bodies of every version of a character in the multiverse, jammed together.And that's not nearly all of them.

Baby Blasters, an off shoot of the Gasterblaster AU, where young Sans and Papyrus can change shape to resemble the Gasterblaster weapons, with the flagship fic being Trust , as well as a thriving Tumblr Community.

There are apparently two universes the stories take place in- the main one, and a second world where Paul takes more actions that could be termed renegade, such as turning Sportsmaster into a construct, trying to steal tech from the New Gods, injecting himself with Venom Buster, and eventually begins calling himself Grayven.

And there is the Crime Syndicate universe (aka Earth -14), which take place before and after the events of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Here, Paul is a Blue Lantern, who goes by the name of Power Ring and is a Made Man of Ultraman, and is technically babysitting the more adolescent tempered Young Offenders in check.

The Fool's Canon arc brings into picture of other alternate Pauls with different power rings in the wider multiverse.

An Anti-Green Lantern Paul, who is a reluctant villain that is being controlled by his power ring, in a version of the DCAU in which it includes Cyborg being a founding member of the Justice League and a abundance of sidekicks closely participating in the League.

crawlersout: Odd case. Fem!Harry's house is connected to two separate universes: one is set in her original time, years after the defeat of Voldemort, where the plot of the original Harry Potter series happened (just with Harry as a girl). The other is an alternate universe set in the 1930s, where the point of divergence is Harry taking in a young Tom Riddle Jr. a few years before he is set to go to Hogwarts. The main plot occurs in the latter setting, where Harry is raising Tom and interacting with some of the most prominent figures in this era (more specifically, Gellert Grindelwald, with Albus Dumbledore slated to appear later), with occasional dips into the former setting.

Films — Animation

It's implied that the two Cinderella sequels are set in different universes.

The One is a cross between this and Conservation of Ninjutsu. The villain is traveling around to the various universes killing all the alternate versions of himself so he'll have all the power that would otherwise be spread out between them. Since the hero is one of the alternates, he winds up with bigger and bigger slices of the power pie as well, making for a battle royale when it's down to just the two of them.

Super Mario Bros. The Movie posits a "sub-dimension" created through the impact of the meteorite into earth that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs continued to evolve in this sub-dimension in the city of "Dinohattan", a city mirroring New York City.

In Cube 2: Hypercube, the hypercube transects parallel universes. The characters don't realize this until they start running into duplicates of themselves and each other. Exploited by one character who uses them as a human food source.

Apparently the setting of Parallels leans heavily on this trope, with entire branches of The Multiverse to be shunted about in.

Literature

In the 100 Cupboards trilogy, the different worlds the characters reach through the cupboards are implied to be parallel universes whose timelines have diverged so dramatically from that of "our" Earth that they bear little resemblance anymore.

The Paratime series by H. Beam Piper is based entirely around this concept, in which an advanced Earth civilization with the technology to explore alternate universes does so in order to secretly mine them for resources.

In Teresa Edgerton's Celydonn trilogy, the Inner Celydonn plays this role to Celydonn proper, so that, for example, the version of Tir Gwyngelli known in traveller's tales really exists as the home of The Fair Folk.

In City of Heavenly Fire, Edom is actually a parallel Earth, that even had its own Alicante and Shadowhunters, but which was laid waste to by the demons and is now part of the territory held by Asmodeus and Lilith, and basically rented out to Sebastian.

The Devil's Alphabet by Daryl Gregory is a novel where a virus of sorts mutates the populations of a couple of cities in different parts of the world. The eventual realization is that the various types of new humans (Argos, Betas and Charlies) are what humans are normally like in alternate versions of the world.

The Roundworld Project: Created by Hex the magic AI as an emergency dumping-ground for a thaumic overload, an orange-sized spherical universe is kept on Rincewind's desk at Unseen University. Most of the UU faculty think this narrativium-deprived alternate reality is a silly waste of time; even so, the Archchancellor occasionally (meaning, whenever a new Science Of Discworld book is published) tasks his wizards to offset interlopers' tampering with the pocket universe's history. Silly or not, it is University property. "Roundworld" is, of course, our own universe.

Alternate Universe theory crops up elsewhere in Discworld, too, such as in Lords and Ladies, where Ridcully, upon being told that there's a universe somewhere where he married his childhood sweetheart, gets annoyed that he wasn't invited to the wedding:

Ridcully: You'd think I'd think of me, wouldn't you? What a bastard!

Mid-World from The Dark Tower books by Stephen King is a strange collision of Scavenger World, After the End, and Weird West with some trace elements of Steam Punk to boot. It exists "next" to our world on the Tower, and shares some overlap, such as the existence of "Hey Jude" as a type of ancient campfire song, the presence of an Amoco gas pump, and a mysterious race of Precursors who had knowledge of and access to our world. This is without mentioning the endless levels of the Tower which make up different versions of our world and Mid-World. See The Multiverse page for that.

In Dragonlance, Raistlin succeeds in becoming a god and killing every other god as well as all life in Krynn. Then Caramon time travels back to prevent him from succeeding.

The Alternate Universe part comes from the suggestion that there are universes where Caramon didn't succeed.

Most of the Claimed in Dis Acedia come from various alternate universes.

In The Edge, the Weird is a mirror universe to our world, mirrored so that Florida is in the west and California in the east. None of the characters are duplicated, though.

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick contains an alternate 1960s California controlled by the Japanese after a defeat of the allies during WWII. There is mention of another alternate reality, apparently revealed to an author who writes a book about such an alternate in which the US does not lose WWII. This is slowly revealed not to be "our" alternate, but one dreamed up by the writer, and of no special significance. The book was written using the I-Ching as a guide to the character's actions.

Robert J. Sawyer's trilogy, "Hominids", "Humans", "Hybrids", is all about an alternate universe where Neanderthals didn't go extinct, but homo sapiens did.

The alternate history series 1632 runs on this trope. Not long after the Virginia mining town from 2000 appears in Europe in 1632 during the Thirty Years War, some characters speculate they have moved to a different universe.

In Smoke and Shadows, Arra comes from what seems to be a parallel Earth given how easily she adapts to life in Vancouver. Her world was less technological, but magic use was mainstream.

The Myriad UniversesStar Trek novella collections have the "for want of a nail" version of this trope. The Mirror Universe short story collections, on the other hand, are very different to the main universe.

The Farside Trilogy involves travel between Earth during the World Wars and a magical realm called Yuulith where humans have to deal with Elven Empires and an invasion from a Europe taken over by utterly alien seeming creatures who want to enslave everyone in Yuulith.

In Wildside by Steven Gould, a teenager has a portal to a parallel world in which humans never evolved on his farm, they try to use it to become rich by exploiting it, but the teenager's mother came from a different world in which the Industrial Revolution ran amok and destroyed it, eventually using portals to come to our timeline saving the uninhabited world as a potential lifeboat for our world

In The Unicorn Girl, the protagonists inadvertantly explore several alternate universes.

In The Whenabouts of Burr, somebody steals the Declaration of Independence and replaces it with its counterpart from an Alternate History; the protagonists go in search of that alternate history in order to find answers and get their own Declaration back. The title comes from the fact that the alternate Declaration was signed by Aaron Burr instead of Alexander Hamilton — which incidentally makes the protagonists' world an alternate history as well, because in our history Hamilton didn't sign it either.

The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith — a police officer in a dystopian United States is accidentally blown into an alternate universe where the North American continent is a libertarian society, and must help his alternate self defeat a plot to conquer this new world. Basically an Author Tract (albeit an entertaining one) for libertarianism, it's available online as a graphic novel as well.

Go Set a Watchman was written prior to Harper Lee penning To Kill a Mockingbird, and as such, there are several inconsistencies between this novel and the one that ended up becoming a classic. For example, Atticus expresses skewed views of racial equality unlike his TKAM counterpart, and Tom was acquitted of rape in this version on the grounds that it was consensual.

The Red And The Rest takes place in a parallel Earth where the major difference seems to be a link to one of these. The main characters soon find themselves lost in the world of lost things, which really kicks off the plot.

A Thousand Pieces Of You. The whole storyline of the books is about two scientists traveling from universe to universe and finding trouble in each one.

In Rough Draft, the protagonist finds himself the customs officer of an Inn Between the Worlds with access to a number of parallel worlds. Some of these are explored in greater detail than others:

Earth 1 (Arkan): A universe 35 years behind Earth 2 from a technological and historical viewpoint, although some areas of technology here are superior to Earth 2.

Earth 2 (Demos): Our world. One of the most technologically advanced known worlds. Nicknamed "Demos" for the prevalence of democracy.

Earth 3 (Veroz): A world without nation-states or oil, so Steam Punk is common. City-states can be found across the world, frequently in the same locations as on Earth 2 but with different names. Australia hasn't been explored or settled. Seas are full of dangerous creatures, such as krakens. One of the more fleshed out worlds in the novel.

Earth 4 (Antik): A world stuck at the Classical stage of development with an "evolved" form of slavery (e.g. slaves can be richer than their owners and can rebel twice a year).

Earth 5: Humans have a spring mating season and are at the 50s-60s level of development.

Earth 8 (Firmament): A world dominated by the Catholic Church, stuck in Medieval Stasis with the exception of advanced bio-engineering. The Cardinals run the Church (no Pope) and are protected by female Swiss Guards with killer Yorkshire terriers, razor-sharp halberds, and flying gargoyles.

Earth 14 (Janus): A planet with harsh winters and scorching summers. Spring is the only (barely) tolerable season. There is no moon and no magnetic fields. Initially appears lifeless, but one character insists that some human and animal life survives by migrating with the spring.

Earth 16: It appears to be Earth stuck at the primordial stage with unceasing volcanic activity and radiation. It's later revealed that it's an After the End world that is the homeworld of the Functionals. Human and animal life survives on a single island.

Earth 18 (Preserve): A pristine world with no humans. Frequently treated as a resort place, provided the visitors clean up after themselves.

Earth 22 (Nirvana): A world with no animal life. Filled with plants that produce spores that trigger a narcotic effect. Used as a prison of sorts, since all people dumped here are permanently stuck in a drugged stupor. Taking someone out results in a lengthy withdrawal period.

Earth 46: A technologically-advanced world, whose people have successfully resisted an inter-dimensional invasion. They practice Brain Uploading and "preserve" their dead by copying their minds into robots. They have used their advanced quantum physics knowledge to seal off their world from the rest permanently.

Andrey Livadny's The History of Worlds setting turns five of his previously separate settings into The Multiverse, allowing characters from them to interact. Four are unofficially called by key works set in them, and one is called by the name of a key character.

The History of the Galaxy universe: the most explored setting due to being the author's longest-running series with over 60 novels, novellas, and short stories, spanning a millennium of humanity's exploration of the galaxy and various conflicts between human powers, corporations, and aliens.

Another Mind universe: humanity is at the early 21st century development level and comes under attack from space.

Life Form universe: humans are settling the Solar System with STL interstellar travel a possibility; alien artifacts are discovered on some planets.

Contact universe: humans are exploring the galaxy using FTL-capable ships; then an archaeological discovery on Ganymede is made, revealing the existence of multiple alien races.

Omni universe: Earth is a radioactive wasteland, following a mutually-destructive war against a race of Insectoid Aliens, with the survivors of both species attempting to rebuild their civilizations.

Live-Action TV

Andromeda did several episodes exploring Alternate Universes in various ways: as a Near-Death Experience, and as a result of one character's ability to view potential futures. The most noteworthy was "The Unconquerable Man", which was an entire Clip Show playing out events from the show's history with a different lead character.

Illyria mentions being able to live seven different lives at once in different universes back in her days, including a universe made entirely of shrimp. She tired of that one quickly.

Awake is about a detective experiencing parallel realities after a car accident, one in which his wife has died, one in which his son has died. He uses tenuous cross-universe clues to solve crimes. The validity of the realities and the possibility that one is a subconscious response to trauma is always in question. The series ends with the possible introduction of a third reality in which both wife and son are alive.

These eventually became a running gag on the show, with Anya often mentioning universes she could potentially send people to: the universe of infinite Wednesdays, the universe without shrimp, the universe of nothing but shrimp...

At first, "Superstar" appears to take place in an alternate reality where Jonathan is the eponymous Marty Stu, but it later turns out that he had cast a spell that altered reality itself.

The Community episode "Remedial Chaos Theory" features the group rolling a die to choose who will go to the door to get the pizza. Abed warns that this will create 6 (actually 7) alternate universes. Everyone else of course dismisses this, but we the audience get to watch each one unfold. The differences ranges from different characters hooking up, mental break downs occurring, everyone having an awesome night, and everything going to shit. The versions of the characters in the universe where everything went to shit end up being recurring villains.

"Inferno", an alternate totalitarian Britain (branching off at least around the 'defence of the republic act, 1943'), which is in a still greater rush to get free power from tapping the magma of the Earth. It is destroyed, with the Doctor able to just avert the similar events happening a few hours later in his 'home' alternate. Not bad at all.

"Rise of the Cybermen"/"Age of Steel" has the TARDIS fall through a crack in time and land in a universe where the Cybermen were being created on Earth. Mickey explicitly references how common the trope is in comics. This universe crossed over again in "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" and its effects continued to be felt in Torchwood's "Cyberwoman" episode. And in the finale of Series 4 of Doctor Who.

In "Turn Left", Donna Noble has an entire alternate universe built around her, where she never met the Doctor, and he consequently dies after the events of "The Runaway Bride." It does not fare well. In fact, the universe without the Doctor is pretty much a terrible place to be.

The Alternate Universe on Fringe is a world where pockets of time and space become unstable due to Walter's kidnapping of Peter by crossing to the other side. In the AU, there are many details that differ from the characters' home universe, such as Martin Luther King Jr. being on the American $20 bill and the World Trade Centers still standing and Walter never went insane (and never hard parts of his brain removed), and is now the Secretary of Defense and head of their Fringe team, which takes far more drastic action to combat the far more drastic "Fringe Events" that occur "over there". Also, they're keen to show the presence of zeppelins, just so you know it's an alternate universe.

Game of Thrones Ascent, which follows the plot and events of the TV show (such as the death of Rakharo or Xaro Xhoan Daxos' betrayal) but incorporates elements of the novels: like Vaes Tolorro or Catelyn taking two Freys as wards.

One of the Christmas Specials features a world in which Artie never got on a wheelchair. As a result, there's no glee club, and Mr. Schue is an alcoholic and still married to his manipulative wife Terri. Also, Rachel never went to New York to work on Broadway and remained in Lima working as a librarian, Puck and Finn never graduated and remained being Jerk Jocks, Kurt didn't graduate either because, without the support and help of the glee club, he was bullied twice as much, and Quinn, without Artie's help and support, never could recover from the psychological trauma of being stuck on a wheelchair after her car crash and committed suicide.

There's also the episode in which Tina is knocked unconscious and she wakes up in a world where she has traded places with Rachel, that is, Tina is the club's main lead and singer while Rachel has to stay in the back and never gets a solo.

Grimm: There's at least one alternate universe where the Wesen run free and probably from their come from. In this universe Wesen can not vogue and humans live like in the Dark Ages.

Kamen Rider Dragon Knight uses the concept of alternate universes, accessible through mirrors. The Earth Kamen Riders are chosen because they are genetic doubles of the original Kamen Riders from the alternate universe of Ventara.

Sci-fi series Lexx made this its staple. The first season of the show involved the characters jumping through an inter-universe rift twice, and in the second season once at the beginning, before the entire Light Zone was wiped out in the second Season Finale, forcing the Lexx (and a large amount of particle matter from the zone) to get forced back out into the other universe.

The season 1 finale of The Librarians 2014 has Flynn and Eve travel through three alternate realities, after Dulaque messes with the Loom of Fate. In each of the three realities, one of the Librarians-in-Training is the Librarian, since Flynn never took the job offer 10 years ago. Strangely, Eve appears to have been recruited as the Guardian at the same time, but has since been killed under the same circumstances (stabbed by Excalibur during the events of the pilot). Each of the three realities is a Crapsack World. At the end of the episode, all three help Flynn and Eve restore the Loom, even though this would mean that they themselves would be written out of existence. Their prime counterparts don't remember a thing.

Stone!Librarian world: Stone failed to prevent the full return of magic to the world and is running around the world, containing the worst of the magical problems, while countries are being engulfed in conflicts. This version of Eve used to be Stone's lover.

Ezekiel!Librarian world: Ezekiel's attempt to handle the House of Refuge crisis has Gone Horribly Wrong, and the world is undergoing a Ghost Apocalypse, as Team Ezekiel (he found a way to make money as the Librarian) struggles to find a solution. This version of Eve was Ezekiel's mother figure.

Cassandra!Librarian world: Magic is everywhere. Cassandra herself is a powerful wizard, having used magic to get rid of her brain tumor, which affected her personality. The world is coming to an end, and she plans to escape reality in a manner similar to Morgan le Fay with a small group of followers. This version of Eve was Cassandra's friend, although she disapproved of the use of magic. After Eve's death, Lamia became the new Guardian.

Lois and Clark had an Alternate Universe in which Lois was lost in a jungle and Clark had not made himself into Superman.

This does allow the protagonists to discredit the Big Bad, who tries to expose Superman's secret identity. It's kinda hard to argue that Clark Kent is Superman, when both of them are standing right there.

Season 6 of Lost features an alternate universe where 815 never crashed, and many other details are different. Word of God has it that neither timeline should be called "alternate" or "parallel" as those words imply that one is more real than the other. Flash-sideways has been decided to be the proper term. People in the flash-sideways actually retain memories from the other timeline, with Desmond seemingly able to switch between both willingly. The finale blows the flash-sideways out of the water entirely.

The fourth episode has Curtis go back in time to the night he and his girlfriend Sam were busted for drug possession (the reason why he was on community service with the gang). After various failed attempts, Curtis does prevent the bust and him and Sam escape from the police, however it resulted on an Alternate Universe in which he was never on community service, which results in Kelly, Simon and Alisha being murdered by the probation worker, something Curtis had prevented from happening in the pilot.

Episode 2.6: A world in which a man who can manipulate lactose reveals their powers to the world, but later when more people with much more impressive abilities he is regarded as a joke in comparison, resulting on him going psycho and murdering Alisha, Nikki, Kelly and Nathan.

And then there's also that episode of Series 3 in which an old man gains Curtis' ability to travel in time and goes back to Nazi Germany to kill Adolf Hitler. However, he fails, Hitler obtains his phone and uses it to make gigantic technological advances that resulted in the Nazis winning WWII.

Homaged in Mystery Science Theater 3000, "Last of the Wild Horses", where Dr. Forester and TV's Frank get to quip at the movie, and evil Mike and Bots watch on from Deep 13.

"Ace" Rimmer (what a guy!) on Red Dwarf came from an Alternate Universe, and travelled between dimensions. The Red Dwarf crew themselves had previously travelled into an Alternate Universe in the episode "Parallel Universe". Some episodes have featured similar alternate versions of characters and events, but were a result of time travel rather than passing into another Universe (notably "Timeslides" and "Inquisitor").

Rimmer enters a mirror universe in "Only The Good...", where he's captain of the ship, Kochnski is a Dumb Blonde, and The Cat a genius professor.

The dream world from "Back To Earth" is treated like this after the crew wakes up, and they find it hilarious that the people in it think they're real and the Red Dwarf crew are the fictional ones...

The books delve into this too. While multiple universes are established in Better Than Life, they really come into play in Last Human and Backwards. Last Human occurs when the crew return from Backwards Earth to the wrong universe and try to track down Lister's other self. In Backwards, Ace Rimmer is given a backstory behind Project: Wildfire and turns up to save the crew. Bonus points for the fact that both books, having each been written by Grant and Naylor separately, take place in alternate universes to each other.

In Seinfeld episode #137 "The Bizarro Jerry", Elaine is in a similar social circle where the Kramer equivalent is neat, George's is responsible, etc.

In the Shadowhunters episode "This World Inverted", Clary visits an alternate dimension where the Shadowhunters haven't needed to exist for centuries.

An interesting subversion: Clark wakes up in a mental asylum; apparently, he started having delusions of superdom in high school, and his "saving" of Lex in the first episode actually cost Lex his legs. Oh, and Chloe is a freaking nutcase. Of course, it was all a delusion caused by an escaped Phantom that attacked him in his barn and invaded his mind. John Jones (the Martian Manhunter) helped him escape by entering the illusion (as another inmate), and capturing the creature in a Kryptonian crystal.

Season 10 had an Alternate Universe as a major plot line: Clark discovers a kryptonian artifact called a "mirror box" and when activated it takes him to a world where the Kents never adopted him, but instead was raised by Lionel Luthor and goes by the name "Clark Luthor". Clark Luthor himself is brought to Clark Kent's world and causes no end of trouble before the original Clark manages to switch them back. Then it turns out the alternate Lionel managed to come through to the main world with Clark, taking the place of the original Lionel (who was dead) with a story that he'd faked his death. Then Clark Luthor uses his mirror box to come back and send our Clark to his world, where he helps the alternate Jonathan reconnect with Martha, and convinces Clark Luthor to try and use his powers for good, rather than live in Lionel's shadow.

Much of the Australian-Polish TV series Spellbinder takes place in a parallel world, which, initially appears to be primitive but is later revealed to be taking place After the End (an unknown Spellbinder experiment resulted in a global disaster). Temporary rifts occasionally open between our world and the world of the Spellbinders. The sequel Spellbinder: The Land of the Dragon Lord involves a machine, built by a Chinese inventor from yet another reality, that allows him to travel to any parallel world. The inventor and his companion from our world end up visiting several more worlds, including a world where much of humanity has been wiped out by a plague, and the cure that saved a tiny fraction of people also made them immortal and unable to reproduce, and another After the End world, where remnants of humanity try to rebuild after a devastating Robot War. The titular Land of the Dragon Lord is an alternate China, where ancient aesthetics mix with advanced light-based technology.

Stargate SG-1 has had many different alternate universes. Oftentimes, the "alternate" Samantha Carter is not in the military and is engaged/married to the "alternate" Jack O'Neill. Alternately Daniel Jackson was never part of the Stargate Program. More often or not, when this is used, Earth is under imminent Goa'uld attack.

In the episode "McKay and Mrs. Miller", alternate Rodney is a really nice guy with lots of friends and alternate Sheppard is a member of Mensa, greatly annoying everyone with his egoism. In our universe, Rodney is the egoist one, Sheppard is a nice guy who took a Mensa test but turned down the offer to join.

In "The Daedalus Variations", a dimension-travelling Daedalus starship from an alternate universe pops up, and the team is trapped onboard when the ship continues to jump through alternate universes randomly. These include one where the planet Atlantis is located on hadn't formed into a stable planet, and one where they're attacked by an unknown group of hostile aliens. They can't shut down the dimension jump but they can reverse its direction, allowing them to get back before the engines quit on them and stranding them permanently.

And another is shown in the penultimate episode "Vegas". There, Sheppard is a homicide detective with massive gambling debts. He couldn't be included in the team because the stunt he pulled off in Afghanistan got him dishonorably discharged instead of getting Reassigned to Antarctica in time for the pilot. Rodney is more likable (though one scene suggests that he's simply better at keeping a lid on his ego) and the Wraith already made an attempt at culling Earth just to be repelled by the control chair in Area 51. Oh, and Todd got so delirious from starvation he's speaking in rhymes.

An Alternate Universe seems to be seen in the episode "What Is And What Should Never Be", but it's really all in Dean's head and everything is his perception — Mary's perfect, Sam and Dean are a bit wussy and the family is like any other. In his fantasy, his mother Mary and Sam's girlfriend Jessica were never killed by Azazel, so the Winchester family live perfectly normal lives and his Dad died peacefully. As Dean is utterly unhappy there, it seems he wants a extremely codependent relationship with Sam and the wracking memories of his family.

A real Alternate Universe, or rather a series of them, pops up in the episode "Mystery Spot" thanks to a repeating time loop in which Dean keeps dying. The iteration before the final time loop lasts months instead of the standard day, resulting in a dark, isolated Sam.

Later in the episode "It's a Terrible Life", where Dean is a Marketing Director for a firm and Sam is a techie in the same building with no memory of their hunter life beforehand apart from a few dreams, it's revealed that this was all a ruse from an angel to show Dean hunting is in his blood and he will always find a way to be a hunter. This is also a play on the Wonderful Life trope.

The second AU episode took place in the sixth season, where the brothers are sent to a universe note which is basically our world with a bit of hyperbole where Supernatural is just a TV show filmed in Canada, in which Sam and Dean are played by Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, and there is no magic, demons, angels, monsters, or any supernatural beings at all.

And then there's "My Heart Will Go On", in which the Titanic never sank, somehow causing the Winchesters to own a Mustang, Bobby and Ellen to be married, and Celine Dion to be a lounge singer in Quebec.

In The Twilight Zone episode "The Parallel (1963)" an astronaut orbits the Earth a few times then lands in a world that is almost identical to the one he left but has subtle differences, he's a colonel instead of just a major, the president isn't Kennedy, etc. Then he wakes up in a hospital bed and it starts to look like it was All Just a Dream, before NASA receives a radio transmission from his counterpart.

VR 5's Missing Episode, "Parallel Lives" had Duncan wake up one morning to find himself in a universe where Sydney, rather than her sister, had died in a car crash years earlier (of course, it eventually turned out that neither sister had actually died; both the car crash and the parallel universe were complex VR hoaxes. The episode was intended to test the viability of replacing the central character for the second season, a possibility which became moot when the series was not renewed).

Wizards of Waverly Place had an episode where Alex goes through a mirror and enters a parallel universe where nearly everything is about her and in her favor.

Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys use a mostly standard Mirror Universe: Good characters become Evil, shaven characters become bearded etc. But regular Iolaus is a good, shaven, competent warrior and regular Joxer is good, shaven and incompetent; in the Mirror-verse, they are both good and shaven, but Iolaus is incompetent and Joxer is competent. There are some weird rules for the two universes. If a person (or a god) dies in one universe, he also dies in the other. Unless they happen to be not in their universe at the moment. This happened to the alternate Iolaus who was trapped in an "in-between" world when "our" Iolaus took a knife in the gut. Also happened to Hercules, as his double the Sovereign was killed while in this "in-between" world.

The second season of The Flash (2014) introduces Earth 2, an alternate world with many of the characters having duplicates. It's stated that there are an infinite number of universes, but this is the only one that appears to have a direct line to Earth 1 via the breaches that have resulted from the paradox singularity that opened in the season 1 finale. When traveling between the universes, characters experience glimpses of other alternate worlds (read: shows). The overall technology level of Earth 2 is higher than that of Earth 1, partly thanks to the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator working successfully (as far as the public is concerned), although much of the tech has a Zeerust feel. Additionally, Atlantis is a real place there. The Flash of that world is not Barry Allen (who is just a CSI on Earth 2) but Jay Garrick (his nickname is Crimson Comet instead of Scarlet Speedster). There is also Gorilla City in a tropical rainforest, a refuge for intelligent gorillas. Meanwhile, Oliver Queen never made it off Lian Yu, his role as Starling City's protector having been taken up by his father, known as the Hood. Oh, and Earth 2 duplicates of right-handed Earth 1 characters are lefties, and vice versa.

Earth 3 is mentioned in season 2 finale, which is the world where the real Jay Garrick (Henry Allen's double) is from.

Music

Gloryhammer: The first album, Tales from the Kingdom of Fife is set in a Fantasy Scotland with unicorns, magic, trolls and goblins. The second album, Space 1992: Rise of the Chaos Wizards is set ten centuries later in the grim darkness of 1992, when Zargothrax, the Evil Sorcerer from the first album, comes back to wreak havoc with the aid of the Goblin King and the Chaos Wizards.

Tabletop Games

Several Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings are alternate universes to both Earth and each other, though this is rarely referenced in game materials and comes mostly from Word of God.

Greyhawk exists in a Multiverse (along with Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms), but it's not made up of alternate universes. Rather, it's the term used for the system of heavens and hells, elemental planes, the Astral Plane, and so on; the different campaign settings are planets in the same universe.

Forgotten Realms. The entry for 1357 DR in The Grand History of the Realms notes that in that year, on an alternate Material Plane world known as Earth, Ed of the Greenwood gathered together various books and maps given to him by Elminster of Shadowdale, and made the first publication of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

Mystara somehow exists in a different multiversal set-up from the other campaign settings. In addition to Earth, it also crossed over with another universe with futuristic technology; a starship from that universe crashed on Mystara and its radioactive engine became a major source of arcane power.

Unlike most other official Dungeons & Dragons settings, Greyhawk and Mystara share background elements pulled from early games (such as the aforementioned starship crash, the Barony of Blackmoor, and connections to Earth), but in slightly different formats.

Gothic Earth, a spinoff of the Ravenloft product line, is an Alternate Universe version of our own planet in which supernatural horrors lurk beneath the façade of Victorian-era society. Also, some characters from classic fiction in our world are real there.

Urban Arcana's worlds on the other side of Shadow could be this, but the nature of Shadow makes travel between universes... tricky. As in, 'you can't go back'. One of the adventures includes a character from the other side that has figured out how you can travel between the Earth of UA and his world. This character, and his organization, also appeared in Planescape...

The Exalted supplement Shards of the Exalted Dream features four versions of the main Exalted universe: a Space Opera setting, a modern day setting, a fighting game-style setting, and a setting based on Battlestar Galactica (2003).

The enemy timeline is Centrum, a scientific state that wants what is best for all, and for this to continue (discovering where this one branched off is a surprise)... others in the Alternate Worlds books have included Gernsback (named for the Golden Age SF editor), where Nikola Tesla's inventions shaped the development of science; Excalli, where the dominant empire is an Aztec-derived one; Roma Aeterna, where the Empire of Rome simply carried on, with the adoption of science; an alternate where China continued to trade overseas; and several versions of the usual "Nazis triumphant" parallel. Oh, and the United States of Lizardia, where dinosaurs evolved into sentient beings but somehow ended up recapitulating human history along the way.

Wizards of the Coast long ago published a set of generic supplements for handling deities in roleplaying games, called The Primal Order. One of the books in this series, Chessboards, covered in exquisite detail how to design and manage an entire multiverse complete with cosmology.

It features several different dimensions/realities, each corresponding to a different genre (such as Aysle, a traditional world of Medieval European Fantasy; the Cyberpapacy, a Cyber Punk world run by a Corrupt Church; the Space Opera-influenced dimension of the Space Gods; Orrorsh, a Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror Story in a Heart of Darkness style British colonial jungle setting; the Nile Empire, a world of Pulp Action Adventure; the Living Land, with sentient dinosaurs; and others), all cooperating to invade Earth.

Part of what makes TORG such an interesting game is that it's based on distinctly different rules for how reality works, depending on the context of the home dimension. First edition's Nile Empire, for example, had no room for moral ambiguities: every character was either Good or Evil, though they could change from one to the other under the right circumstances. Characters can engage in literal 'reality duels' with opponents from different dimensions, and the High Lords can do the same with entire areas of real estate.

Toys

BIONICLE has the Olmak, also called the Mask of Dimensional Gates. Does exactly that. Its wearer, Brutaka, has used it both to teleport and to send enemies to a dimension they probably won't return from. He tried to send his former friend Axonn into the Zone of Darkness (a pitch-black dimension with only flat, featureless plain with gravity), and also used his (then damaged) mask to teleport Takanuva to Karda Nui to warn the heroes of a great danger. However, the mask malfunctioned, and sent Takanuva into both Alternate History and a Bizarro Universe. After finally finding the another Olmak in one of those universes, Takanuva entered inter-dimensional space and got to his intended destination. This is a Multiverse with a twist, as "our" dimension is explicitly called "the real universe", the rest are only pocket dimensions that shows how things would've turned out if they were done differently. Brutaka's mask was destroyed eventually, but the lunatic villain Vezon managed to get his hands on another one... and it ended up fusing to his face. Now he is a living dimensional gate, and has already visited several other universes (among them a few of those that Takanuva got lost in).

A subversion of this trope happens in the book Time Trap before any of the other examples. Vakama wakes up in an alternate timeline where he and the rest of the Toa Metru never became Toa and six others became toa in their place. At first it seems like he accidentally changed the past with the mask of time, but it turns out the Big Bad was using illusionsto trick him. Vakama figures out the situation isn't real by mentioning an event that didn't happen to a friend who would know that it didn't happen, then continues to play along with the illusion for a while to look for clues.

Video Games

The Tyranny of King Washington downloadable content for Assassin's Creed III features the player character waking up in an alternate universe in which his mother is still alive, he never joined the Assassins, and George Washington went mad with power after acquiring some Lost Technology and declared himself King of America. In addition to the alternate historical elements, there are some supernatural powers present as well, truly separating the setting of Tyranny from the main Assassin's Creed setting, which is Like Reality Unless Noted.

BioShock Infinite: One of the primary themes focused upon. Sidekick Elizabeth can open "Tears", which allow access to Alternate Universes. Most of them only have very minor differences- items placed in a different locations- or, as Elizabeth gives an example, tea instead of coffee. Others have major differences, such as a key gun runner for the rebels being killed off early, or Rebel Leader Daisy Fitzroy having become a conqueror just as bad as the Big Bad, Comstock. The end of the game reveals that Comstock is actually an Alternate Universe version of protagonist Booker Dewitt, having become a hypocritical Dark Messiah after accepting the baptism that Booker refused.

Makoto's Story "Slight Hope" in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift has her accidentally travelled to an alternate history world whereby Noel wasn't alive and it took place 3 days prior to her own timeline. Rachel ultimately explained this to Makoto and guided her back to her own timeline. Even in Litchi's story, she could sense an alternate universe happening.

BlazBlue Central Fiction takes place in one, due to the influence of the Embryo. Most characters just go around living their lives normally; only a few are aware of it, such as Relius (who is performing research into its nature). Act 2 reveals that it is the same time and same place, but with different "causality". Whatever that means.

Chrono Cross had alternate universes replacing time travel as the main hook.

The original Crazy Taxi has "Another Day" mode. Where in the normal mode most customers want to travel in a certain direction which leads to the cabbie going in a counter-clockwise direction around the circuit, in "Another Day", the customers usually want to travel to a destination in the opposite direction, causing the cabbie to go in a clockwise direction around the circuit.

The DLC for Dragon Age: Origins entitled The Darkspawn Chronicles pitches the idea of a world where The Hero died near the beginning of the game, thus leaving Alistair to save the day. It does not end well.

Dragon Quest VI features the world that the The Hero comes from and the world referred to as the Phantom Realm. Except it's the "Phantom Realm" that's really the real world, while the other world is the Dream World.

The areas Yaschas Massif and Academia in Final Fantasy XIII-2 have alternate versions that appear after solving paradoxes in the timeline, and are marked with an X in the year name (ex. 01X AF). You can still go back to the original universe, though.

In the second installment of the "Timeline" mod trilogy for Half-Life, Gordon Freeman is transported to a parallel Earth where the US never rebelled (the major superpowers are the British Empire, the Soviets and the Japanese), and an ice age began some 300 years earlier, threatening human survival. That world's Gordon Freeman has failed, so our world's equivalent is sent to stop the Xen invasion there (as well as an invasion of time-travelling Nazis from our dimension).

Infinite Crisis the video game is set in the DC multiverse, with characters from six Earths colliding:

Nearly every character from Kingdom Hearts is an alternate version of his/her Disney or Final Fantasy counterpart (otherwise the game would run into some serious continuity problems). This is implicitly stated in Space Paranoids.

Technically, Auron might be an exception to this, as he did die and pass on to the afterlife in Final Fantasy X only for Hades to bring him back from the dead to complete a task. He even expressed his former role as a guardian to Sora. The statue containing his free will also echoed his memories from the events of Final Fantasy X.

Kirby & the Amazing Mirror takes place in another literal mirror universe (akin to the Charmed and Red Dwarf ones above), parallel to Dreamland and containing mirror versions of Meta Knight, Kirby, and, as revealed in the Dededetour mode of Kirby: Triple Deluxe, King Dedede.

The Legend of Zelda has plenty of alternate universes to choose from: Due to the timeline shenanigans of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, there are at least three alternate versions of Hyrule: One where Ganondorf was stopped before he could claim the Triforce, one where Ganondorf did claim the Triforce (and was stopped by Link), and one where Ganondorf defeated Link. There are also many "realms" such as the Sacred Realm, where the Triforce is usually kept (although at some points it was known as the Dark World.) There is also a Twilight Realm, the world that the Minish come from, Lorule and others.

Based on what has thus far been fan-translated of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's: The Battle of Aces, it takes place in an alternate universe where Reinforce I/Eins survives and the corrupted Book of Darkness creates "Dark Pieces" of selected cast members (sorry, Arf and Yuuno) to get its own back again.

The Mega Man series has two universes: the main one (Classic, X, Zero, ZX and Legends), and the alternate one (Battle Network and Star Force). The difference between these two timelines is that the latter has internet technology prosper instead of robotics (as was the case in the former).

In a strange way, the alternate universe also rewrites most of the robot masters who were Mega Man's enemies into potential allies, the most notable being Guts Man and Search Man, both whom are enemies in the mainline series, but consistent allies in the alternate timeline.

The Neptunia games all have been set in a universe similar, but different from the Gameindustri of the first game. With only Neptune, Vert, Blanc, Noire, IF, Compa, Histoire and (most of the time) Arfoire as The Constants:

Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory while it starts in the same universe as mk2, winds up with Neptune going to a parallel Gameinsustri based on The '80s (called the Ultradimension, in contrast to the Hyperdimesnion of the last 2 titles). And while Noire, Vert and Blanc have dimensional counterparts that are still the CPUs of their respective lands, Neptune doesn't and Planetune's CPU of that universe, Plutia, is a different person entirely. That is not to say that Neptune herself doesn't have a dimensional counterpart there.

Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart not only has a different protagonist (Noire, Lastation's CPU), but even the continent has a different name (All other games have the continent be called "Gameindustri", this one is called "Gamarket")

And finally Megadimension Neptunia VII has not one, not two but three parallel universes as its setting, including Hyperdimension though both of the other two are eventually revealed to be the creation of the Big Bad of the game. As for chronological placement, the game is canonically set after the events of Victory/Re;Birth 3, but due to how the game references past games (and the goddesses have Character Development more in line with their Re;Birth counterparts than their original selves), it seems to be a sequel to Re;Birth 3 rather than Victory.

The Distortion World in Pokémon Platinum is one of these. It is home to Giratina. Dialga, Palkia and Arceus are also implied to live in their own dimensions as well.

Pokémon Black and White establishes the reason for having One Game for the Price of Two as because of this trope—the other version is in fact a parallel universe to the one you're playing, and the histories of a few areas and characters are different. Using the Entralink you can visit the other world and see the changes. It may also explain how you can get multiple members of otherwise Single Specimen Species.

The reason for the split? According to Zinnia in the Delta Episode, it was the firing of AZ's ultimate weapon 3,000 before the events of Pokémon X and Y. As all titles starting with Gen VI use the Mega Evolution gameplay mechanic, they are assumed to belong to this second timeline, and Pokémon Sun and Moon complicates things further with an appearance by Salon Maiden Anabel, who is suggested to have "fallen" into that world from the one that the original Emerald (and the rest of the pre-Gen VI games) took place in. Sun/Moon also introduces the Ultra Beasts, which turn out to be extradimensional Pokémon from an Eldritch Location called Ultra Space.

There are also implications that the dual games take place in alternate universes from each other, something that was lightly touched upon in the Unovatitles. Sun/Moon takes this further by allowing you to travel to the opposing version post-game via an Ultra Wormhole at the versions' respective Altars.

The plot of the Portal 2 PeTI DLC involves this. Earth-Prime's version of Aperture is nearly broke, so they decided to cut test chamber construction costs by sneaking the designs into alternate versions of Aperture, letting them build it, then stealing them back. You can either play the part of a test chamber designer with the new level editor, or a test subject traveling between universes to test the new chambers. You end up running into various versions of Cave Johnson, all of whom are still running tests (and probably pulling the same scheme) and crazy to some extent (save for the one who stopped the resonance cascade experiments after buying Black Mesa).

Amongst the other notable universes you encounter are a universe ruled by giant mantis-men, a universe ruled by an evil, sentient cloud god, a universe where Cave Johnson created Robo-Cop, a universe made of money, and a universe with an evil version of Johnson where asparagus is the primary food source of the planet.

The Resistance games take place in a setting where after World War I Germany's economy wasn't totally devastated, therefore Adolf Hitler never rises to power and there was no World War II. Instead, creatures known as Chimera take over the entirety of Europe and by the sequel have wiped out the US.

The Dawn of Victory mod for Sins of a Solar Empire has its premise based on an Alternate History where the course of World War II is changed by the arrival of a powerful alien race known as the Scinfaxi (inspired by Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series). After losing much territory to the invaders, the main world powers manage to develop nuclear weapons and beat them back to the Southern Hemisphere. They then rebuild and consolidate their power. Eventually, the Northern Hemisphere is divided between the Soviet Union, the Greater German Reich, and the Democratic Federation. They manage to develop interstellar flight and settle other worlds. After the Scinfaxi resume their advance, the human powers evacuate the remaining population from Earth and nuke the entire planet from orbit. Fast-forward a few centuries. The three main human nations (as well as many smaller states) are spread out over many star systems and vying for domination. Meanwhile, the Scinfaxi (a vast interstellar empire) are preparing to strike again.

The two Sonic Rush games feature a parallel universe. The first game takes place in Sonic's universe, which is slowly merging with Blaze's. The second game takes place in Blaze's universe... which is apparently a giant ocean.

The Super Robot Wars games are set in an Alternate universes for each of the series portrayed in it(the alternate, of course, being that they're all happening at the same time in the same place). Each game or series is, additionally, an alternate universe from each other. Then there is the Original Generation universe, which contains all the original characters and mecha from the other games and then some, which also has its own Mirror Universe, the Shadow-Mirror universe, which is itself the Original Generation version of the Shadow-Mirror universe from Super Robot Wars Advance. Confused yet? We haven't even gotten to the Endless Frontier!

In Tales of Xillia 2, much of the plot revolves around the exploration and destruction of alternate universes, which are threatening the original universe simply by existing.

The Medieval II: Total War conversion mod Thera is a funny example. Thera vaguely resembles high-medieval Earth as far as climate, positions of civilizations and the cultural, technological and historical themes of said civilizations are concerned. Several real-world religions such as Christianity, Islam and Norse Mythology are present as well. That said, the world has a radically different history, and the landmasses are different. Also, there are a number of Low Fantasy elements present, especially in Version 4 of the mod: velociraptor-riding Paynal cavalry, a playable faction being a dead-ringer for Isengard, hostile tribes of frost giants roaming around the northernmost continent, and various Public Domain Artifacts such as Excalibur, the Holy Grail and the Book of Morrigan being real and possessing magical power.

And, mind-bogglingly, despite what the game says, it actually has some bearing on the main plot. Joshua flees to that universe after shielding Neku from Minamimoto's Lv. i Flare. Whereupon he challenges Another Day!Neku to a Boss Rush to kill time.

It also seems to cross over into The Multiverse with certain people as they can go to other dimensions, and even meet themselves if they aren't careful.

Garrosh didn't create the alternate universe. It already existed as an alternate with a few key differences from ours. He just changed it MORE and connected it with ours. The alternate Draenor is actually a mix of this trope, Time Travel, AND Set Right What Once Went Wrong.

World of Warcraft in general messes with this as there are many cannon timelines that the Bronze Dragonflight watch over, including and not not limited to a timeline where Thrall was never born, an alternate future where Deathwing succeeded in destroying all life on Azeroth including himself, and of course the after mentioned alternate Draenor that the Fifth expansion takes place in.

Dangan Ronpa IF takes place in a "What if?" version where Naegi finds a switch to escape the school before any of the students can attempt a murder.

The main plot behind Little Busters! can be described as this. At first you don't realize because you're playing like any other DSIM, but at each playthrough the two main characters evolve a little (better seen on their status screens) and little things change from one playthrough to the other. It's only when you complete the Rin route for the second time, after playing through all the other five routes that it's revealed that the world they live in is actually an alternate universe created for the two main characters by the other eight, in order to help them cope with what happened in the real world.

Sunrider Academy is a Highschool AU of the main Sunrider universe. Sola’s route reveals that both universes are part of a larger multiverse, as Academy!Sola is one of several “fragments” of the main universe Sola, created when the main Sola was transported thousands of years into her future; as such, Academy!Sola should not exist and the plot of her route involves preventing her from being erased from reality.

The When They Cry-franchise is filled of this, referred to as fragments/kakera. In Higurashi the Ground Hog Day Loop is revealed not to be repeats of the same events but instead different universes with a certain person pushing the Reset Button after each arc searching for a fragment in the sea of fragments where Rika won't be killed. In Umineko we are introduced to witches who can travel in the sea of fragments looking for specific events that fit their needs or wants.

Web Animation

The 150th Strong Bad Email had Strong Bad visiting many of the website's alternate universes.

Web Comics

In Two Over Zero, an alternate version of the universe was discovered by Terra.

In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja The universe the setting is in is sandwiched between two other realities, the Radical land, and what amounts to the real world. These universes both bleed their coolness and lameness into the comics one respectively so that its cooler than our universe but not as cool as the radical lands.

Bittersweet Candy Bowl, According to the commentary, the chapter "Another Path" was originally intended to be set in an alternate universe where Paulo had sex with Lucy during her Mental Breakdown in "Another Shoulder". The final version has it as a daydream of Paulo's.

Bob and George has an infinite number of them, and Bob visits quite a few. The title characters themselves are from a different universe than the one where most of the action takes place.

In Bobwhite, Cleo freaks out over the many-worlds hypothesis and its implications on fast food. In this universe, she never orders burritos because they're gross... which means that in some other universe she always orders burritos. But why?

There are a few of these in Breakpoint City, though they haven't played a major part so far.

Decrypting Rita has four such universes at minimum, not counting Universe Aleph:

Universe Aleph: A Beautiful Void mountain of eggs watched over by Kim-Aleph, where Rita is all of the above and more. Here, Color-Coded for Your Convenience applies more to the characters than the world: Kim-Aleph is green and Rita-Aleph purple.

Dinosaur Comics has an alternate universe where everyone has goatees, a Shout-Out to the Star Trek episode "Mirror Mirror," in which the Spock counterpart wore a goatee. Anytime you see an alternate universe counterpart with a goatee, chances are it's a Shout-Out to "Mirror Mirror."

Dumbing of Age is an alternate universe to Shortpacked! and the other series in Dave Willis' Walkyverse. It reboots the story by placing it back in college (most of the Walky cast graduated from college in 2001) removing the science fiction elements completely, and using a Sliding Timescale so the characters will never graduate. Shortpacked is still running alongside it, though, ensuring the walkyverse will continue.

Actually, as Natasha (the brown Erin) points out, due to genetics, Erin was more likely to be brown than blue and that the blue Erin is a genetic fluke.

Yes, Erin IS that vain to have made friends with her other world counterpart.

In El Goonish Shive, the Word of God said that at least four dimensions have meddled with the "main" one. Most of them are Alternate Universes, each with its own version of Tedd or other main characters.

In Fake News Rumble, all the villains came from an alternative universe, as well as protagonist Tek Jensen. Furthermore, every universe contains some version of of our heroes Stephen and Jon.

Fall City Blues revolves around two versions of the same person forced to live together when their alternate universes were merged to save space.

All the Four Corners short stories or most extra drawings are always putting the characters in alternate universes, and never in the comic's actual timeline.

Alternate Universes play a big role in the 'Maze of Many' arc in Goblins; the Maze itself is a Pocket Dimension which allows different iterations of characters from across multiple realities to exist in the same place simultaneously.

In Homestuck, initiating the Scratch creates one of these by resetting the conditions of the game, including the players and their universe. As a result, the players of the initial session switch places with their ectobiological parents, and vice-versa. This has happened twice so far: once to Earth, and once to Alternia.

Jix had a story that took place in an alternate reality where Remula had taken over the Earth and it was discovered later that the original Lauren had actually be transported to that universe when she caught up to her counterpart.

If they can be successfully opened, Panegates in The Mansion of E allow access to alternate universes.

MS Paint Masterpieces has a number of alternate timelines that are shown as side-stories. As X explains in filler, there's only one actual timeline, and when you mess with time travel, you destroy the projected one, which is what Wily's up to between the first and second games.

The protagonists of Paonia Pawns gain the ability to travel between these; in many, some sort of disaster has wrecked the local civilization.

A rather saccharine dimension where everyone is always nice and friendly to each other, there's no beer, and the main source of food is rice cakes,

A dimension where everyone has purple hair and speaks Portuguese,

An anime-parody dimension where battles between good and evil were regularly fought out by giant robots, in which the entire universe is actually a power source for a giant waffle iron (don't ask),

A dimension that has been invaded by Aylee's race, and

A dimension that has been overrun by mutants, with the only survivors holed up in the Orwellian 4U City, which keeps its inhabitants drugged into submission.

John Ringo's Hell's Faire features several Sluggy Freelance strips as if they were created within the novel's setting. This was possibly a favor in return for the shout outs to Sluggy Freelance in the third and fourth books of the series.

Supernormal Step takes place on an AU Earth with magic and fantasy creatures. It is one of many dimensions, and two of the main characters are actually from our normal, boring one.

In What Birds Know, a mysterious tower acts as a gateway between the normal world and a bizarre version where people lay eggs, among other oddities.

Dragon Ball Multiverse: In total there are 20 competing in the tournament, each going down a different path in DBZ history (Goku becoming evil, the Namekians fusing to form a Super-Namekian, etc).

Helvetica takes place in a world where everyone is 'born' as a skeleton right after they die on the real world. They have none of their old memories and the first word they say becomes their name, no matter how weird.

The first story in the Brave New World Universe has an entire story arc dealing with a character traveling to multiple alternate realities.

Fate/Nuovo Guerra takes one of Fate/stay night's bad endings and runs with it as their Back Story. The Fifth Grail War results in the destruction of Fuyuki City, prompting the Einzberns to start a new Grail War elsewhere.

In Keit-Ai, two lovers from alternate dimensions help each other out in hooking each other up with the AU versions of themselves by telling their deepest, darkest secrets through their cellphones (hence the title).

In Lords of Creation every one of the new gods became that way by successfully offing a god in their own universe, now they have to create their own and hopefully not screw it up.

Phaeton takes place entirely in and out of alternate universe (Labeled Alpha Gamma 64) and the records of events were somehow sent to our universe, exactly how is as of yet untold.

Survival of the Fittest has had several small-scale AU RP's. These range from simple What-If scenarios (What If the students had been rescued on Day 3, What If SOTF really was a TV show, etc) to radically different concepts such as MechSOTF and SOTF with zombies.

Fairly recently, a spin-off site effectively dedicated to Alternate Universe versions of Survival of the Fittest was created, with the pilot in an interesting Continuity Nod, being an alternate version of Battle Royale, the concept which SOTF was based off.

The Mini site also now hosts SOTF: Evolution, which is like normal SOTF, only with 20 characters instead of the Loads and Loads of Characters the main site has, and with Super Serum induced mutations instead of designated weapons.

Tasakeru takes place in an alternate universe where humans have never existed.

A popular fad on YTMND is to take pre-existing memes and create Alternate Universe counterparts, usually under the PTKFGS moniker ("Punch The Keys, For God's Sake!", another one of Sean Connery's lines from the famous scene in Finding Forrester that named the website), although even more Alternate Universe versions exist, usually as either "Yes Yes" or the elusive "Fourth Corner", where no-one can really agree on a final name for the latter.

The retrofuturistic Eighties setting of Within the Wires is a False Utopia that divorces children from the concept of family, separating them from parents, and eliminating/repressing memories of siblings and childhood relationships at the age of ten via pharmacology, cybernetic implants, and batteries of psychological programming. Gradually, the series reveals a Point of Divergence , a devastating war called "The Great Reckoning." In its aftermath, The Society was created, and it was decided that nationalism, tribalism and familial loyalty were the root causes of war and violence, to be eliminated through drastic social engineering.

SCP Foundation. The Foundation has many contained objects that apparently come from (or are doorways to) other universes, many of which are similar to the Foundation's universe.

SCP-093 ("Red Sea Object") is capable of transferring people to an alternate world using mirrors. This world is mostly a wasteland filled with futuristic technology and giant humanoid monsters that attack and absorb any living things they see. Explorers from our universe find a journal of an SCP agent from a third universe that details what happened here. The world the object connects to was visited by an incredibly powerful god-like being only named He, who arrived during the Industrial Revolution and declared the world to be unclean. He instigated a massive Tech Boom for a war to purge the world of sin. This left the world in ruins and the survivors became the giant abominations, mutated thanks to exposure to a pure form of a substance called His Tears, which was apparently supposed to free them from sin. Not only that but there are numerous copies of the Red Sea Object that are all linked to other universes, and there's a possibility that He could use the Object copies to travel to any of them... including ours.

SCP-970 ("The Recursive Room"). Anyone who passes through all of the doors in SCP-970 and ends up in their original location will actually be in a slightly different universe. Each time they pass through SCP-970 the universe will change a little more, until things get really strange.

SCP-2069 ("AEGIS") is a collection of debris that was blasted into the Foundation's universe. It was the aftermath of when AEGIS (a team up between the Foundation and the Global Occult Coalition) used a doomsday device called NOVA as a last-ditch attempt to stop an Alien Invasion.

SCP-2332 ("Thought Messenger") is a butterfly made of ultraviolet light that was originally created and sent out by another universe's version of the Foundation. It ended up in this universe by accident.

SCP-2451 ("Love Through Time, Space and Species"). SCP-2451 is a doorway to a series of other universes, some of which are very different from the Foundation's universe. In one the "humans" are 8 foot tall bird-like creatures with beaks the size of a human's arm.

SCP-2645 ("Through the Looking Glass"). The anomalous mirror SCP-2645 has another universe accessible through its mirrored surface that is initially identical to the SCP Foundation's universe. The contents of that universe can be changed by the influence of entities in the Foundation's universe.

SCP-2935 ("O, Death") is a cave underneath a cemetery, which leads to a duplicate of the Foundation's world where all life died on April 20, 2016. Corpses lay where they fell, vehicles have crashed, trees are broken, and nothing is decomposing because all microbial life is dead as well. Even SCP-682 is dead. It turns out to not be the first universe where this has happened, as a traveler from this world found a similar one. Upon returning, found everything but him instantly died. The Foundation exploration team realizes the same thing could happen to our world if they return, so they choose to stay and seal off SCP-2935 forever.

Western Animation

In the season four finale of Adventure Time, the Greater-Scope Villainthe Lich finds and opens a portal to The Multiverse. When Finn and Jake follow, we see them in a universe where the Mushroom War never happened. Thus, the Candy Kingdom doesn't exist, Jake can't talk, and Finn is not the last human. He also has a robot arm.

We find out more about this in the season 5 premiere. Finn wished the Lich out of existence, so he and Jake ended up in an alternate timeline where the Ice King performed a Heroic Sacrifice to prevent the final bomb from falling in the Mushroom War, and the creation of the Lich, from ever happening.

In the Codename: Kids Next Door episode "Operation: P.O.O.L." Numbah Four travelled to an alternate world where the KND were the DNK (Destructively Nefarious Kids). His own evil counterpart was the leader (complete with goatee).

"Life, the Negaverse, and Everything" in Darkwing Duck — a mirror universe set up to explain the origin of Negaduck (not to be confused with the self-proclaimed Negaduck whom Megavolt accidentally created in another episode by dividing Darkwing into good and evil clones) The portal to the Negaverse was lost at the end of this episode, in a traditional Status Quo Is God ending.

In "The Farnsworth Parabox", Farnsworth creates a box leading to an alternate universe where every coin toss has the opposite outcome. There are also lots of other boxes, leading to other alternate universes, each linking to each other.

In "I Dated A Robot", Fry goes to the edge of the universe and sees alternate versions of himself and his friends, all wearing cowboy hats.

In "The Beast With A Billion Backs", a portal opens to an alternate universe, home to only one sentient being: Yivo, the infinitely huge, love-lorn ball of tentacles.

In "The Late Phillip J. Fry", after Farnsworth, Bender, and Fry have reached the end of the universe, a second Big Bang creates a universe identical to the last, giving the trio a chance to go home. And giving Farnsworth a chance to shoot Hitler. And once they reach their time, Farnsworth accidentally slips on the controls, forcing them to go all the way back around again. This time around, Farnsworth misses Hitler and hits Eleanor Roosevelt instead.

In "The Lesser of Two Evils", the sign which says "Tonight: MISS UNIVERSE PAGEANT" a moment later turns into "Tomorrow: MISS PARALLEL UNIVERSE PAGEANT".

In "That's Lobstertainment!", there is a Parallel Universal Studios side-by-side with the Universal Studios.

An episode of G.I. Joe featured a timeline where Cobra had succeeded in taking over the world.

Justice League had several — the retro-styled world of the Justice Guild, the dark dystopia of the Justice Lords, the Vandal Savage-ruled world created through time travel, and others.

Notably, the Justice Lords Universe depicted Arkham Asylum, and Gotham City for that matter, as very bright, Metropolis-esque places, in one of the few instances of the city being shown during the day.

In Episode 70, the main four meet themselves from another dimension where the concept of life is "Let's Learn..." instead of "Let's Play...". Alternate Universe!Kaeloo's transformation takes place in reverse, and instead of being sweet and gentle, she's strict and somewhat abusive. Alternate Universe!Stumpy is intelligent instead of being The Ditz, and Alternate!Universe Mr. Cat is a quiet idiot who eats books instead of an extremely intelligent but Ax-Crazy psychopath who goes around destroying stuff.

In an episode of Rugrats, Tommy and Chuckie think they're in a "Mirrorland."

In Steven Universe, there are some differences in terms of history and geography. The American colonies were founded by William Dewey, ancestor of Beach City's Mayor Dewey. Mexico doesn't exist, and Florida is an island separated from the mainland. State names are different as well — Pennsylvania is called Keystone, and Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia are one large state, called Delmarva. Later on, a world map shows the full ramifications of the Crystal Empire's interference: Australia is off centre and partly fractured, half of Russia is a sea-filled crater, and West Africa has floated off to become part of Brazil.

A large percentage of Rick and Morty revolves around parallel universes and inter-dimensional travel. In one episode, it is revealed that many of the infinite other Ricks from alternate dimensions came together to form the Citadel of Ricks, a society made entirely up of Ricks with their Morty companions, complete with their own form of government. The ability to travel between dimensions has also helped the duo on more than a few occasions. Most notable was the time where Rick irreversibly altered the DNA structure of everyone on Earth, making them Cronenberg creatures. They remedied the problem by finding an alternate dimension where both Rick and Morty die shortly after solving the problem, leaving the "invading" Rick and Morty to bury their own corpses and assume their own lives in a new dimension.

Real Life

Many physicists and cosmologists are coming up with the possibilities of other worlds, and that there are more than one universe, but multiple universes in the "multiverse". This idea has been theorized in religion, transpersonal psychology, literature, astronomy, and philosophy. Even though the theory is quite popular in science fiction and fantasy cultures, many scientists are trying find proof of existing dimension. Some believe we are living in parallel universes that had different timelines, alternate histories, and different, but similar environments. But the existence of alternate universes has not yet been confirmed.

Community

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